Over staffing causes deficit to hospital

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BIRGUNJ, Nov 23 - The local Narayani sub-regional hospital has been forced to bear a deficit of Rs 200 thousand each month due to over-staffing.

The Hospital Development Committee had planned to remove unnecessary employees from service but the plan is being met with stiff resistance from the employees.

There are around 300 employees at the hospital. Out of them, 121 employees, including 8 doctors are being paid from funds collected by the committee. The committee collects about Rs 300 thousand per month from the hospital while it pays Rs 500 thousand per month as salary to the 121 employees.Consequently, it has made the hospital financially unsound, Medical Superintendent Dr. B.K.Prasad said.

He said the doctors and employees recruited by the government would be sufficient to operate the hospital.

Medical Superintendent Prasad said the previous Hospital Management Committee had created this mess by recruiting employees at random and had turned the hospital into a recruitment centre.

The government allocates a fund of Rs 8.8 million annually for the hospital to pay the salaries and allowances of 50 doctors and nearly 150 other staff. There is a strict order not to pay the salaries and allowances of employees hired by the Hospital Development Committee.

The committee had, about four months ago, decided to dismiss all its employees from service, but it could not put this decision into action after the employees protested and staged a sit-in programme. It is learnt that many of the staff were hired on the basis of "sources" and financial gain while some of them had been renewing their contract every year for many years.

Police destroy hemp in Parsa

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BIRGUNJ, Nov 23 - The high-level Marijuana Operation Team of Parsa district has destroyed marijuana grown over an area of 1690 ropanis (130 bighas) in just six days.

The District Police Office sent a 65-member police team under the command of Deputy Superintendent of Police, Prem Bahadur Chand, to destroy the hemp plant crop grown in different parts of the district following widespread criticism of the police in the local and national media. The team achieved success by working on a war footing.

According to Superintendent of Police, Shyam Krishna Karmacharya, the team will return to the district headquarters only after destroying the entire hemp plant crop grown in the district. The team has so far completed its work in about a dozen villages, he said.

Newspapers had reported that hemp plant was grown on a large scale in Parsa district this year, but the police had turned a blind eye. The destruction of hemp plant grown on 130 bighas of land amply demonstrates the scale on which it was grown in the district as reported in the newspapers.

Hemp plant has been grown in 50 of the total 82 VDCs in this district. Two thirds of the crop is yet to be destroyed. It is the practice to harvest hemp plant by mid-December.

Meanwhile, farmers in some villages have alleged that the police team has not destroyed the hemp plant crop in some villages which are inhabited by influential people. They said hemp plant grown in Shankar Saraiya, Paterba Sugouli, Shedawa, Sugouli and Supouli has not been destroyed yet.

Asked to comment on this allegation, SP Karmacharya said the team was planning to cut back the hemp plant "line by line". The team intends to destroy the hemp plant crop grown in these villages also. The allegation that police receive bribes from this illegal crop will be proved false this time, he said.

Biogas : A viable option for villagers

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CHITWAN, Nov 23 - Started for the first time in Nepal by Professor Father BR Subre at Godawari School some 45 years ago on an experimental basis, bio-gas technology has become popular in rural areas across the country.

Today, there are a total of 71,129 bio-gas plants all over the country. However, bio-gas experts say that the number of bio-gas plants should have increased to 1.3 million over the past 25 years when the government initiated such scheme with a view to protecting the jungle from becoming extinct.

President of the Bio-gas Coordination Committee, Keshav Devkota, said that the most feasible technology among the rural folks had not developed at the expected rate due to a lack of public awareness and the government’s incompetence.

Devkota said the bio-gas technology is an economically viable option for rural farmers who can use animal manure as raw material to operate the plant on a daily basis. He also revealed that the technology, which is quite suitable in rural parts, is cheaper than imported fossil fuels.

Devkota says that people who have owned the bio-gas plants in their homes have been able to save three hours per day and that farmers’ dependency on forest resources has been reduced.

A total of 49 bio-gas companies active in this field have provided employment opportunities to 10,500 skilled or unskilled labourers across the country. According to a statistics provided by the coordination committee, more than six thousand bio-gas plants have been installed in Chitwan only.

Devkota says, "A bio-gas plant not only saves time as locals no longer have to fetch firewood from a jungle, it is environment-friendly as well."

Under the Bio-gas Support Programme assisted by the Netherlands government, a person installing a plant is entitled to a subsidy of Rs 7,000 in the Terai region and Rs 10,000 in the hill region.